Charles Ier de Cossé

Charles 1st of Thimble , of the angevine family of Thimble-Brissac, is count de Brissac (1505 - 1563), Marshal of France in 1550

Biography

It was born from Rene de Cossé, lord of Brissac and Cossé in Anjou, large Fauconnier, and of Charlotte de Gouffier; it is of a delicate complexing. It compensates for the forces which it misses by the address that it acquires in its exercises; it often carries it on most robust, by its skill to handle a lance and a sword.

Child of honor of François, dolphin, oldest son of François {{Ier}}, this young prince does it its first rider. Sent to the Head office of Naples, in 1528, it is attacked by the Spanish S with the descent of the galères; its troops move back to the edge of the sea: only, with foot, without helmet, without armor, its only sword with the hand, it is defended against a rider armed with all parts and the captive fact. It orders hundred light horsemen with the Prise of Veillane and that of the Château of Suze in 1537.

Large falconer of France in 1540, it is named, in 1542, general colonel of people of French war, with foot, from there the mounts. With the Head office of Perpignan, under the dolphin (since Henri {{II}}), while the young nobility of the army, delivered to the pleasure and the play under the tents of the prince, take care little of the movements of besieged, those make an exit, fill the trenches and go on the park of artillery; Twelfth Brissac, it, advance a spade with the hand, receive all the fire of the enemies, and, in spite of a wound with the thigh, maintain the combat until the arrival the infantry which releases it. The dolphin says to him by embracing it

that he would like to be Brissac, if he were not dolphin.

II order in 1543 all the light cavalry in Piedmont, follows the same year the king in Flanders, beats a considerable body of the imperial ones, and makes them 600 prisoners. Alarm is spread in the remainder of the enemy army; it gives up the attack of Bohain, the Siège of Own way, and withdraws in disorder on Quesnoy. Brissac attacks its rear-guard, demolishes a part, and takes of it François d' Este, brother of the Duc of Ferrare and general of the imperial cavalry. The French Army is withdrawn: Brissac, to facilitate the walk of the king and to ensure his retirement, takes care of the rear-guard, and there cost the greatest dangers. Invested with twelve riders which accompany back, it makes extraordinary efforts to get clear; some French run to his help: his brassarts, his rise-collar had been torn off to him; its clothes were in parts; a German extremely and vigorous removes it top its horse; Brissac still struggles with the section of its sword; finally the men-at-arms attached to his person tear off it with the enemies. It jumps on a fresh horse, and regains large army. It arrives there covered with blood and of dust. The army owed him its safety; the king presents to him with drinking in his cut, embraces it, and the fact knight of his kind. The emperor learns whereas Landrecies, of which he wanted to make the seat, was equipped with ammunition and vivres, and whom the French Army had withdrawn near the Cateau-Cambresis; he continues the rear-guard ordered by Brissac which pushes back it.

In 1544, it is sent with its light cavalry and: 2000 infantrymen with Vitry in Perthois; from there it badgers the imperial army, removes its Fourrageur S, cut its convoys: the emperor detaches on him: 4000 men with an artillery train; the part is too unequal; Brissac gives up it, and is withdrawn towards Châlons. In a sharp skirmish, it is taken twice and twice delivered by its troops. Peace is made in September with the emperor. In 1545, it demolishes the English on the ground of Oye, located in Boulonnais; peace concludes with the England in 1546. One removes the load of large Master of artillery with Jean de Taix, which had allowed some imprudent speeches, and it is given in 1547 to Brissac,

the lord of the court most pleasant, known as Mézerai, and also more liked Diane of Poitiers.

It was called commonly beautiful Brissac. 11 had the same year the load of Grand panetier. Marshal of France in 1550, it goes to Piedmont, whose king gives him the general government; this province becomes a military academy then where the regular guard of the places, the frequent exercises in the plains, and of small combat aguerrissent the soldier and draw the officer from the inaction where it mollement was mollement plunged. What makes the most honor with the marshal of Brissac, it is that it restores in his army a so exact discipline that the soldier, even in country of conquest, did not dare anything to take but private. It made regulate the ransoms on both sides, according to the function and the load of those which were done prisoners. One did not make the war with the villagers nor with the merchants, but only with those which carried the weapons, and the peasant plowed without fear between the two camps. To repress the fury of the duels, which was carried to excess, he imagines to allow them, but in a way so perilous that he removes of it soon the desire; it orders that those which would have from now on quarrel would decide it on a bridge between four spades, and that overcome would be thrown in the river, without it being allowed to the winner to give him the life.

Brissac, in 1551, is made main of Quiers and several other cities to Piedmont; these successes oblige Gonzague to raise the Siège of Parma. In 1553, it takes, by climbing, Verceil, and delivers it to plundering. The invaluable pieces of furniture, precious stones and the treasure of the Duc of Savoy are removed: this prince had made them transport in this place that it looked like impregnable. Brissac does not have enough gun to force the citadel; it is withdrawn, always followed by the enemies, and does not lose anything the spoils which it carries. Gonzague, fearing the companies of Brissac, double all its garrisons and weakens its army. It was what the marshal wished. Almost always without money, it esit not in a position to hold the countryside; little of troops which remain to him since it had sent detachments in France, are not paid and support themselves only by its attachment for its general.

In 1554, it takes all the Pays of Langhes, and finishes the countryside by the conquest of Ivrée, which opens a passage to the auxiliary troops of the Suisse S, and facilitates the races in the Milanais and on the grounds of Pavia. In 1555, by a blow as happy as bold, it surprises Casal. All the nobility of the imperial army, which had gone there to attend a tournament, the governor and his soldiers, have only time to be thrown in the citadel, the majority without clothes, and almost all without weapons. Brissac enters the city, prohibited plundering, attacks the citadel, defended by a good ditch and four bastions, and is laid out with a general attack. The enemies capitulate, promise to go if, in twenty-four hours, they are not helped. The capitulation was hardly signed that one has opinion that Pescaire walk with: 3000 men to throw itself in the citadel; the marshal holds his troops all the night under the weapons, the clocks are advanced, and the citadel goes; it there finds, as in the city, a many artillery, draws from the ransom of this German nobility, gathered for the tournament, ecus which delight the soldier extremely, badly paid, up to that point, of what was owe him. Henri grants to the marshal a quite glorious favor; it makes him present sword that it carried to the war. This present, whose no king had still honoured one with his subjects, is accompanied by a letter where its value, its diligence, its zeal are painted with more the sharp colors. This prince finishes by this flattering feature:

The idea that I have your merit passed until to our enemies, and lately the emperor acknowledged that it would be made the monarch of the world, if it had Brissac to assist his weapons and its intentions.

The king orders to him to raise a tax on the clergy, the nobility and the people of Piedmont; he includes/understands the first in this tax, and gives: 10000 ecus of sound well. The diseases which spread in its army, by bad food, do not prevent it from still subjecting some places only it makes shave.

The marshal receives a reinforcement of France. Followed several princes and of a great number of voluntary lords, it goes to the help of Santhia, besieged by the Pile cluster, which had replaced Gonzague, forces it to withdraw and leave in its camp 400 patients, its vivres and a good part of its artillery. The French Army forms the Siège of Volpian; Brissac remained sick with Turin; its lieutenants cannot be made obey; the young volunteers go up daringly to the attack; the governor declares that it would capitulate only with the marshal; Brissac is made carry to the army; the city goes; it orders the demolition of it.

With the Prise of Vignal, besieged had defended themselves for a few days; bastard of the House of Roissy, twenty years old, leaves its troop, appears on the breach, draws a blow from arquebus, puts the sword at the hand, insults the enemy; his/her comrades fly to his help and fight with value; the marshal is forced to support them: one fights a long time, the French carry the breach and the city, who are shaven. The marshal did not consider the conquests made with the contempt of the discipline; he would not have left with the seat a Volpian the unpunished indocility of the troops, if the first culprits had not been princes of blood: he puts Roissy at the council of war and the fact of leading to Turin. One proceeded to his judgment; the marked marshal that having defended that one left his row before the signal, Roissy had violated this order, and which its disobedience deserved death: and the council opine like the marshal. One reads in Roissy his sentence, and one prepares oneself to lead it to the torment; Brissac orders with its troops to be withdrawn:

Approach, says it to Roissy; I have pity of your youth; I will estimate one day your value when it is directed by obedience I return to you to the wishes and the prayers of the army. Carry, for the love of me, this gold chain that I give you, receive hands of my rider a horse and weapons with which from now on you will fight near me.

It had punished before, according to all the rigor of the military laws, an officer, who, in spite of his order, had left the army without leave. The council of war declares it

deprived of weapons, honor, of condition, prone to the size, and his/her children commoners

. The king approves initially this act of justice; but, on the authorities of the ladies of the court, it makes thanks to the officer, which does not contribute little to nourish the spirit of indiscipline in the troops.

Brissac beats the enemies everywhere when he learns the defeat from the French with Saint-Quentin, receives the order to make leave five thousand Swiss, four police companies, as much of light cavalry, and to be held in Piedmont on the defensive. The king names it, in 1559, governor and general lieutenant of Picardy, on the resignation of the Admiral de Coligny. Invested suddenly by its own soldiers, who ask him, the weapons with the hand, what to pay their debts, it becomes their victim, if it had not found in the generosity of Swiss remedy for the evil which he could not only cure. It sells what remains to him of silverware and jewels, of joint the price with the sum which the Swiss ones lend to him, and distributes the whole to the soldiers.

During the disorders caused by the Calviniste S, Charles {{IX}} names it, in 1562, commander with Paris, where it succeeds in maintaining the calm one. It orders in 1563 in Normandy, from where it will be put at the head of the army in front of Orleans, after the assassination of the Duc of Own way. The court, in peace with the calvinists, undertakes to drive out the English of Normandy; the marshal of Brissac orders under the king and the constable with the Siège of Le Havre, which capitulates at the end of eight days: it was its last forwarding. He dies in Paris in next December, with the reputation of one of the most famous captains and the more great men of his century. One finds the history of his campaigns in Italy in the memories of Of Villars (see: François de Boivin). D.L.G. {RC}

To distinguish it from his younger brother Artus of Thimble-Brissac it is called the " Marshal of Brissac ".

He is the father of

Timoléon de Cossé, count de Brissac (1543-1596), military
Charles {{II}}, duke of Brissac (1550-1621) Marshal of France, (called the Maréchal of Thimble )

See too

Family Thimble-Brissac

Source

External bonds

Portrait of Charles {{Ier}} of Thimble, count de Brissac, towards 1537

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